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Laboratory equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific has settled a lawsuit brought by the estate of Henrietta Lacks, a long-deceased cancer victim whose “immortal” cells have lived on to fuel biomedical research for decades, lawyers for the estate have said. The story of Lacks, a young African American woman who died in Baltimore in 1951, was made famous in Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which became a movie in 2017 featuring Oprah Winfrey. The HeLa cell line, the first to survive and reproduce indefinitely in lab conditions, has been cultivated in vast quantities and used in...

The chief of the World Health Organization has honored the late Henrietta Lacks, an American woman whose cancer cells ended up providing the foundation for vast scientific breakthroughs, including research about the coronavirusThe chief of the World Health Organization on Wednesday honored the late Henrietta Lacks, an American woman whose cancer cells were taken without her knowledge during the 1950s and ended up providing the foundation for vast scientific breakthroughs, including research about the coronavirus. The recognition from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus came more than a decade after the publication of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Rebecca Skloot's...

The HeLa cell genome is riddled with errors, raising questions about its continued use. The research world’s most famous human cell has had its genome decoded, and it’s a mess. German researchers this week report the genome sequence of the HeLa cell line, which originates from a deadly cervical tumour taken from a patient named Henrietta Lacks. Established after Lacks died in 1951, HeLa cells were the first human cells to grow well in the laboratory. The cells have contributed to more than 60,000 research papers, the development of a polio vaccine in the 1950s and, most recently, an international...

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a poor woman with a middle-school education, made one of the greatest medical contributions ever. Her cells, taken from a cervical-cancer biopsy, became the first immortal human cell line—the cells reproduce infinitely in a lab. Although other immortal lines have since been established, Lacks’s “HeLa” cells are the standard in labs around the world. Together they outweigh 100 Empire State Buildings and could circle the equator three times. This month, PopSci contributor Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, tells the story behind the woman who revolutionized modern medicine. Here, five reasons we should...